president obama host president karzai at the white house this afternoon on the agenda the war in afghanistan u.s. troops have been in the country since two thousand and one so when will they leave for good a report on that meeting and just ahead. and taking to the streets to hold president obama accountable protesters march here in d.c. trying to push the president into posing guantanamo bay the facility in cuba where the u.s. holds enemy combatants that they claim are on trial we'll take you to the discussion . and farmers versus monsanto a group of farmers are trying to reinstate a class action lawsuit against the biotech giant what they're fighting about and why the issue may affect what's on your dinner table coming up.

it's friday january eleventh four pm in washington d.c. . and you're watching r.t. right well it's the moment we've all been waiting for for over a decade just hours ago president obama met with his afghan counterpart to discuss a twenty fourteen drawdown of american troops now in front of the camera both president obama and president karzai have presented a united front and say that they agree on the future goals for afghanistan here's one of the more surprising moments that came out of today's speech started. training. assistance afghan forces. it will be a stork moment and another step toward full afghan sovereignty something i know that president karzai cares deeply about as do the afghan people. on that front the

two leaders agreed but one report after another has demonstrated that these two leaders are often at odds with one another are terabit correspondent joins me now to talk about the current relationship between the presidents and what we've learned from today's meeting so thanks for joining us first of all let's start with in front of the camera these are men here to be the best of friends what's their real relationship like. even though they try to give us that picture that they've agreed on the goals that everything is going well i don't think that was really what happened behind closed doors i mean the fact is the fact that obama could not even talk about the precise number of troops to be left in afghanistan the problem with the immunity the issue of immunity the nature although he kept saying that the nature of the troops left in afghanistan will be fundamentally different we did not really hear an exact plan that maybe cares i has been in washington for

a whole week to try to get to try to guarantee from president obama so i don't know if that if we can call that a united front differences were very obvious especially when they were talking about immunity specially when they were talking about the number of the troops to stay in afghanistan so the situation is very complex. living in twenty fourteen for the elections he did say during the press conference that he will be a retired than that leaves the future of the future of ghana's than as vague as the nature of the relations between the united states and afghanistan in the future so obviously a lot actually came out of this conference today or we give learned a lot and that might be learning that they're still not much that we know at this point or that they have figured out concretely at this point one thing that did come up over and over again was president karzai saying in reiterating the fact that they need afghan sovereignty in the nation and one of the surprising things

that actually came out of today. was that they announced that once the cars i returned to the country they will be in charge of the detention facilities and the detainees in afghanistan afghan forces will be talk about the importance of this and why this was a sticking point for president karzai he can go back and tell his people i have accomplished something now we do have control over our own over own prisoners now this is the silver n.t. that i've been talking about this is something that i've accomplished and this trip this is. he can use this. goes back to his country for his people to tell them that our sovereignty is coming back the troops are going to leave we are going to be in charge of our own destiny of our own future of or own basically security this is something that the afghanis have demanded a lot because of the fact i mean this is their country and just imagine the afghanis in a situation where they live in their own country but someone else is controlling

their own prisons someone else is controlling their own prisoners who gets to stay there who gets to go on trial who gets what and when and this is something that i have been putting as i under a lot of pressure and this is something that now we can use and tell his people that have accomplished something of this trip now that's one of the seven points for president karzai now on the other hand president obama had his own sticking points you kind of talked about a little bit in your first answer president obama said that he will not leave troops in the country in afghanistan beyond twenty fourteen if there's no guarantee of immunity that was a pretty. mind that he drew today what we found in iraq when we drew out of iraq was the fact that that was not offered immunity was not offered to u.s. troops past a certain point so what did we do we pulled all of them out is this going to be feasible for the u.s. for them to be able to pull out all of the troops if it's not granted and will

president karzai do you. grant this type of right president karzai himself cannot just grant them he has to go back to his country to the people on the ground and a trial and this is what he said actually now i can argue that immunity is something that we could give to the soldiers who remain in afghanistan this is not something that he can just give on his own but the situation in both iraq and afghanistan are completely different what might have worked in iraq might not necessarily work in afghanistan and i think the same will go with the immunity thing although he cannot guarantee give guarantees of immunity to the american troops on his own but he's going to try to go people into that but the structure of his then is completely different than that of iraq in iraq the parliament is to have to decide on this and the parliament basically said no we're not guaranteeing the immunity of any soldier to just do whatever they want in our country is that

going to be the same in afghanistan most probably yes but because the structure is different because of the tripes and because of the. kabal and a lot of people just as the mayor of kabal and that's very true because cavill is basically the country the rest of the country is scattered villages under twenty five thousand of inhabit and so very hard to get them to accept or not accept immunity given immunity to soldiers and will they have a say that's something that we will find out in the future basically just because president karzai says that he thinks that it will happen doesn't necessarily mean that the entire country will agree with that and you just kind of brought up a little bit that that you think that are that the afghan people think that president karzai is the mayor of kabul so let's talk about the kind of how he's seen in his own country people perspective and also how is he how is he seen in the region well he's seen as someone who can pull strings together someone who can

actually get something done on. the international level in afghanistan itself what has the country accomplished we know the situation of education in afghanistan we know the situation of health in afghanistan the infrastructure the fact that. most people are still living in poverty so for the people of afghanistan care as i has not accomplished a lot. i don't know how much respect they would have for him but i know that they see him as someone who could not accomplish everything he did and maybe that's one of the reasons he was talking about the fact that he wants to retire maybe because he knows that he does not have a future in the future of afghanistan so why you bring up this retirement let's go ahead and talk about that one of the sticking points that president obama and other obama administration officials have announced is that it's time for him to start seriously considering a democratic election where the people choose somebody else the fact is that karzai

has been in power for over twelve years now and he's still going is there forced retirement on the u.s. part do they even have a hand to force his retirement and will president karzai release the rain so freely all it needs. to all he needs to do is basically manipulate the constitution and i'm getting one of the observers who is talking about the situation in afghanistan and most likely a lot of people see him doing so is he going to do so i think the u.s. does not want to see again stand does not want to see its role in afghanistan being manipulated as such by. but at the same time they're looking at the alternatives and alternatives do not look very promising maybe at this point in afghanistan so it's it's very complicated twenty fourteen is going to be the. maybe the challenge for the u.s. diplomacy in the you know in twenty four team and another thing that we heard today

that was a little bit surprising. for those of us are watching the president obama president karzai announcement today was that president karzai announce that the taliban will have an office in doha in qatar and that the afghans will become. doing peace talks with these people so why is this so surprising first of all and also i have to ask you is there ever going to be an afghanistan without the taliban i am not sure about the second part of the question i don't think that's going to happen though because the band is one of the main players in afghanistan it's very strong that it has support from the people and for many different reasons some of it ideological and some of it just to do with social services so i don't see them as a power vanishing in afghanistan and maybe that's one of the reasons they're talking about the solution not just within afghanistan but an office for a band in a different country to festivity the talks and the dialogue between the governments

and afghans that many people do not see this very surprising actually the fact that will have its own office they've been talking about this for a long time qatar is seen as some as a place where they can actually haass they can have both parties to talk about the consultation process how successful is that that's the question because taliban is not is not just one faction one group taliban is composed of different groups who believe in different things and we're not sure that all of them agreed to the fact that they want to have reconsolidation well we learn a lot of things today perhaps not the things that we wanted to learn but we did learn a lot about the relationship between the two presidents i appreciate your reporting remarkable him via our arabic correspondent thanks so much for joining us. so i want to know what you say do you take the administration at its word when it says seriously considering taking troops out of afghanistan as we've heard in recent

days and weeks for a harvest of the resident took that question to the streets of the big apple take a look. the obama administration has recently said that it's considering having no troops in afghanistan after just sumber of two thousand and fourteen is that a good thing a bad day or a totally made up thing designed for political shenanigans this week let's talk about that do you even think he's going to do it he said that two years ago and it didn't happen so i don't buy it so why does he keep saying it if he doesn't mean it . to give people like their families will be happy with hopefully you know you finish what you started what did we start and what do we have to finish what is finishing mean. to capture or.

do you think that we've defined what it means it's tough because you know we don't know everything i think we need to have a world presence to maintain the why is it up to us to maintain a world presence why don't we just get out of everyone's business well that's a good idea too but if no if we don't do it nobody will and there was a world's going to go to war and we really need a stabilizing factor and until now in time it's been us but we're the ones causing all the wars. depends on your perspective i guess i'm sort board more defending than attacking but don't you think that there are some people in the world that feel like america imposes its will on their countries yes but america's will lose its freedom and democracy at its heart it's not a fanatical you don't think it's its own might be money and imperialism a little bit too i don't believe that it is imperialism. and what about money do you think that money might drive some of our reasons for home of course but money

is going to help everybody i don't think it's happening i i just came back from afghanistan so oh so you don't believe that he's really going to pull the troops away. entirely i think that i think that there our presence there is important and therefore sustaining what we've done so far my opinion is that the reason we are over there is because of the wonderful oil and i don't have it's all about money and. that's a marina someone who puts your life on the line doesn't that make you mad and makes me really upset because we have a lot of marines dad are dying each and every day in afghanistan you know and you know for god's sakes i can be next you know so it does make me pretty upset that he's promising something that he's not owning up to the bottom line is we're so used to having u.s. troops all over the world up in everyone's business that we probably can't imagine us pulling out of anywhere and that makes americans the world's bullies whether we

like it or not. for over ten years now it's cast a shadow over u.s. diplomatic efforts the guantanamo bay detention facility opened up exactly eleven years ago today in its time it has held and interrogated hundreds of prisoners some guilty of numerous atrocities some completely clean of crime all held without due process eleven years and still no end in sight now since the first days of his first term our constitutional lawyer term president has expressed time and again his plans to close the facility but i've said repeatedly that i'm going to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that i've said repeatedly that america

doesn't torture and i'm going to make sure that we don't torture those are. those are part and parcel of an effort to regain america's moral stature in the world it's a sentiment he's echoed as recently as a few months ago there are some things that we haven't gotten done i still want to close guantanamo we have been able to get that socog. despite all these promises the facility remains open even housing a new seven hundred fifty thousand dollar soccer field but critics are not giving up their pursuit to have get most closed permanently amnesty international held a standing orange protest in washington d.c. today r.t. correspondent christine for south texas there. it is january eleventh that means want on a mobile bay has now been opened eleven years the people you see here in orange jumpsuits represent the one hundred sixty six people still at guantanamo there are also people holding signs like this one that represent the eighty six people that

have been cleared for transfer and yet still remain behind bars. was not just a place it's an idea and the idea behind it is that the u.s. government can ignore its human rights violations in the name of this never ending a global war so that the concept of indefinite detention is what has to end it's not just about one ton of we've been involved in this issue and certain about guantanamo since two thousand and five so we've been coming out for a kid go for it for now they have kids i want them to know that it's the right thing to do to believe in something and stand up for it this is an issue many people have been protesting against for years but one they thought would be over in two thousand and eight once president obama won the election was. i don't know if you know any of the rock songs you're too young maybe from the sixty's but one of them the refrain is welcome to the new boss same as the old boss that makes us less safe when we mistreat people and torture them some military people have

said this is a great recruiting tool for al qaeda look what they're doing to our muslim brothers in guantanamo the protest ended here not far from the white house and just before inauguration those involved say they're hoping that president obama make one ton of obey a priority this time around in washington christine for. our team. on now to a court case we've been following since two thousand and eleven a group of eighty three plaintiffs has come together to sue the biotech giant won santo what's at stake the possibility that small farms could be sued for patent infringement for genetically modified seem to ending up on their property now to be clear the seeds are not on the. small farms but the farmers are afraid that wind draft and cross pollination could bring the seeds to their lands accidentally so it's essentially a lawsuit to stop future lawsuits before they happen the case was already shot down once by new york district courts but oral arguments are being heard today at

a federal appeals court here in washington d.c. so what's what chance does a stand joined me with the answer is dave murphy executive director for food democracy now hey there dave first question can you talk to me about the difference between this time and last time and what the plaintiffs are hoping to accomplish this time sure they can thank you very much for everything the farmers traveled to washington d.c. because they believe they have a right to stand in court. to protect their farms from unwanted genetic contamination or trespass were one said it was genetically engineered if that gets you know many from us. they they can be tested and if they're tested and they have a certain percentage of genetically engineered cross those farmers and lose markets or getting in profits so farmers drove the watching movies today stand before the board you know check themselves for months and it was abusive parent lawsuits which are really outrageous and they've been happening since one thousand nine hundred

seventy the year after month you know first run of the story being your plant that's going to be six and since one thousand nine hundred fifty the farmers have been sued or found in losses at the same time another seven hundred have been sued but settled out of court with one cent they were trying to project organic and jimmy carter's from i don't want to genetic contamination of their crops and maintain their right to farm without these patent lawsuits and basically attacking the rights of former where they want to for now on its part has called this lawsuit completely basis i want to read of a quote from them they said quote farmers have no interest in using monsanto as patency of products have no rational basis to fear a lawsuit from monsanto and claims are and claims are contrary to that quote are to the contrary to quote the district court are groundless and baseless as was the stated in the court it has been and remains monsanto's policy it not to exercise

its patent rights where trace amounts of our patents are present in a farmer's fields as a result of this and for remains now on our website they also said this they said since one thousand nine hundred seven we have only filed suits against one hundred forty five farmers one hundred forty five times in the us this may sound like a lot but when you consider that we sell seeds to more than twenty two hundred fifty thousand american farmers a year it's really a small number of these we have pursued proceeded with trial on only eleven farmers all of the cases are found in monsanto favor so is what monsanto arguing true and also is this case possibly being blown out of context considering the fact that they've only proceeded to trial with eleven people. well is that i would have to say if you believe a month then it says on their website that i have some agent orange and d.d.t. to sell you the fact is i talk to one a month and i'll stop lobbyist in two thousand and nine he said they'd only sued

seven farmers at that time in fact they've taken one hundred forty four farmers report was a fact they stated in the material given to our attorneys ok at the same time another seven hundred farmers were brought to court each year montana spend the least across rural america and they investigate five hundred family farms for these frivolous lawsuits you know they can see a lot of the same thing and they often do we just watched with prop thirty seven where monsanto was willing to say basically anything you deny americans their right to know what's in their food. and farmers you know they are organic and none g.m.o. farmers are very concerned about. the economic impact this genetic pollen has on their on their ability to maintain their livelihood. down the of the situation is monsanto has a flawed technology genetically engineered crops are deeply flawed technologies

that have been allowed into the u.s. market for profits for a chemical in pesticide company and not for the benefit of family farmers for the food supply so they've let me ask you this another thing that we're hearing is that monsanto has a lot of money to spend on these legal defenses cases from campaign donations how does this affect the fight is that really a fair fight considering the eighty three plaintiffs that we have versus this huge biotech giant to really. listen monsanto is the world's largest seed into biotech seed and chemical companies they have unlimited resources we just watched in california property seven and they spent more than eight million dollars to americans their right to know what's in their food the fact is they have a ton of money to spend it is in suing farmers they tried to bully and intimidate these farmers and harass them with these frivolous lawsuits it doesn't matter how much money they have we have justice and truth on our side the american people are

tired of watching corporations like monsanto bully american farmers and not do the right thing when it comes to their labeling the genetically engineered products for allowing their flawed technologies to contaminate it was an organic they're going to get as many only segments of bag closed but there's growing strongly rapidly almost by double digits for the last twenty years right now because once as a flawed technology that contaminates their genetically engineered pollen will contaminate organic farmer fields and their crops we're not allowed to know one that the situation has never been brought before board the other real situation is why are monsanto sending agents on scene police on to farmer's field in the first well day that's exactly what i was going to ask you i mean how does that monsanto find out about these cases where they seem to happen to end up on the lands are they going on to people's private property and testing these sands. absolutely not

going to purchase my land percy schmeiser is one of the heroes of the organic and seed freedom movement in an effort to stand up to month based not going to his farm he's a canadian nola grower he saves the nola seeds for fifty years one of them was the most famous and best plant breeders of canola and canada and they knew that they intentionally went after him they stuck by the land and they took clippings from his field they basically stole plants out of these fields and they tested them they found their genetically engineered genes were actually contained within those plants and they took them to port ultimately percy schmeiser lost its roots in eighty and supreme court but the fact is you know money buys a lot of things in american democracy we found out in two thousand and twelve money can buy you a lot of votes ok but it does it doesn't buy the truth and it doesn't buy justice and we believe farmers have a right to stand in the courts and explain their case why they should not be

exposed and wanted to know the contamination which runs their economic livelihood and at the same time why they should not be bullied and harassed by a biotech giant like monsanto they're worse than the mafia they're the world mafia and and they control governments they controlled congress they have wormed their way into the white house i'm sure i know you've covered the wiki leaks story but they basically threaten france trade wars against france because france didn't want to groove on their jim of props it is outrageous that the lengths with which monsanto will go to get their way to move to a new gym a process and keep barbers locked in a plantation system so they are obviously this is a very big case that i read somewhere that three hundred thousand people are being represented by these eighty three plaintiffs or it equivalent to about twenty five percent of all certified organic u.s. and canadian farms but let me play devil's advocate here for just a minute i mean the plaintiffs in this case are essentially suing for what george

orwell would call a fuck crime something that hasn't happened yet is the fact that monsanto has sued in the past evidence enough that they will sue in the future. well you're the fact it's not a right farmers organic farmers and nudging most farmers there is the day that will their fields will be contaminated or months analysts and genetically engineer opponents if this is the case they face the real risk because monsanto is such a bully so aggressive in their pursuit of the patent prevents what they most likely will be where there are getting farmers that has had their crops tested and they have they have no desire to grow jim across obviously if they're getting most and me and you more where they tested thirty and forty and fifty percent contamination and they planted organic see what they've been contaminated at that level well like i mentioned there is an oral argument going on today and will say how the federal

appeals court treats this they've murphy executive director for food democracy now thanks for joining us your thoughts thank you and that does it for now come back to our five pm for all their news and in-depth interviews on magaluf has. download the official location to your cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television at all it

just doesn't work so now with your mobile device you can watch r.t. anytime anywhere from. the phone.